ViacomCBS Heads Talk Leveraging Star Trek, Expanding All Access With Nickelodeon, And More

After the closing bell on Wall Street, the leadership of the merged entity that will be called ViacomCBS held a conference call with the investment press where they touted the benefits of the merger of CBS and Viacom, announced earlier in the day. Mixed in with the corporate jargon was some talk of interest to Star Trek fans.

Leveraging Star Trek

As noted in the announcement, reuniting the TV and film rights for Star Trek and Mission: Impossible were both cited as rationales for the merger of CBS and Viacom. New ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish expanded a bit on this in his discussion with the investment press when touting the combined library of the newly merged company:

We will have one of the largest libraries of iconic intellectual property, including more than 140,000 premium television episodes and over 3,600 film titles. Notably, this library reunites TV and film rights for some of our most popular franchises, including Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. And we see significant potential to better leverage these and other properties across platforms and assets, including film, television, live events, recreation and consumer products.

The new multi-platform possibilities of corporate upsizing may mean Trek could soon be making a giant leap in its aspirations, not unlike the one in the 1980s and 1990s that elevated Star Wars from a blockbuster film franchise to the ubiquitous, wall-to-wall cultural force that it represents today. As we all know, money has a way of enhancing a proposition. In that vein, the Star Trek braintrust has already acknowledged that the animation push is viewed as a way to enhance the brand’s toy business and to win the hearts, minds and allowance money of kids – another page from a now Disney-owned that Lucasfilm used to masterful effect to build fan allegiance for characters that weren’t in the original film trilogy.

Viacom content could be coming to All Access soon

One beneficiary of the merger could be CBS’ subscription streaming services, including CBS All Access, home of Star Trek: Discovery and other upcoming Star Trek shows. During the same call CBS CEO Joseph Ianniello discussed how the deal will help plans for the growth of these services:

This deal will allow us to share our premium content and marque brands in order to drive growth… Just think about adding content from Nickelodeon, BET, MTV, and Comedy Central to CBS All Access, and Paramount movies to Showtime.

Adding content from those libraries could greatly increase the available content for CBS All Access, helping it compete in the “streaming wars,” especially with competition coming from new services from Disney, NBC Universal, and Warner Media. Nickelodeon content could be especially important facing off with Disney+. Just last week CBS announced they were adding kids’ content to CBS All Access with a new deal with DHX Media which would include 1,000 episodes of library content and new episodes of Danger Mouse and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Ianniello noted that the merger puts them in a whole new league: “We were talking before about 1,000 hours of kids programming, well now we have the best in the world with the number one kid’s brand in the world.”

There is also a Star Trek connection to all of this since CBS is developing an animated kids’ Trek cartoon for Nickelodeon. Given what Ianniello discussed today, there is a good chance the yet-to-be-named Star Trek animated show for Nickelodeon may end up on All Access as well.

Bakish also noted that CBS library content is also expected to move to Pluto TV, the free ad-supported streaming service Viacom purchased earlier this year. The service has no original programming, however, Viacom has already started to leverage the platform with library content from its MTV and Comedy Central libraries. It’s possible that the back catalog of classic Star Trek shows could end up on Pluto as well.

While the announcement stated that the merger is expected to close at the end of the year, Bakish indicated some of this new leveraging of content back and forth could start sooner, saying:

There is nothing at all preventing us from moving forward in terms of beginning to unlock that opportunity in the very near future. Obviously, it is something we will build on over time, but there is some low-hanging fruit there that we will seek to pick quite soon.

CBS’ streaming services will soon benefit from the Viacom library of content.

This is a developing story; keep up with all the updates at TrekMovie.com.

Yeah, the new Marvel comment was a bit much. MI won’t have any issues getting projects financed, Trek is another story.

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August 13, 2019 9:37 pm

TG47

Good point Phil.

The stakes will be exceedingly high for a new cinematic feature for Trek.

I can’t see the director or writers having much freedom to take risks.

They will be looking for the next cinematic feature to kick off a revival and expansion, not be a one off.

Tarantino’s efforts to create momentum for his project, including getting male actor to say they’d love to do it, seems more and more like an attempt to build up ‘immunity’ to what he would see as a hostile takeover environment for his project at Paramount.

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August 14, 2019 4:17 am

ML31

“I can’t see the director or writers having much freedom to take risks. ”

Based on the Marvel example that seems disappointingly likely. The Marvel films pretty much all follow a standard formula that I find tired, but works very well with large audiences.

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August 15, 2019 8:16 am

Theoden_of_ODU

Star Trek needs to find the right balance between the studio/execs and the script/directing. I would definitely take the Marvel approach, where they are attempting to create a cohesive franchise product, even if some of the works being produced are mostly average.

Even with this formula, there have been some exceptional Marvel films made that have been able to rise above the “formula” and stand as really great big budget entertainment.

I’ll add that while “originality” might get stamped out, the Marvel films don’t seem to suffer from the kind of destructive executive meddling that other films and franchises can suffer from. For instance, I’ll take Marvel’s way of operating over Disney/LucasFilm’s poor handling of the Star Wars franchise.

Honestly I’d love to see them even get close to the kind of success that Berman was able to achieve during the 90s with Trek. I know that he turns off a lot of vocal Trek fans, but he was able to steer the franchise quite well for an number of years on television (the TNG films are a mixed bag). Trek was as close to mainstream as it ever has been.

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August 15, 2019 11:28 am

ML31

There have been amazingly few really good Marvel films. Exceptional? I wouldn’t even call the best one that. Most have been tired and some have been, “well that was kinda fun”. If that is what it takes to get Trek going then I am very torn over it. Should Trek go the Marvel route and churn out mediocrity on a regular bases but be more popular or should they strive for (and perhaps not always succeeding) higher quality but risk not being nearly as popular? I honestly don’t think they can achieve both. Don’t even try to convince me that Marvel has achieved it. They absolutely have not.

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August 15, 2019 2:21 pm

Marja

Well, it is show business, and the object of any business is to make money, so I doubt they’ll worry a whole lot about mediocrity. Still, I hope that the talent and creators who come into the projects will do quality stuff!

But as we’ve seen with Marvel and Disney, if mediocrity sells, that’s fine by the owners. ._.

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August 16, 2019 12:24 am

ML31

Marja… You are not wrong. Marvel has a formula that works and they are sticking to it. Mediocrity be damned.

If you’ve seen one Marvel movie, you’ve seen them all. As long as they keep packing them in, they’ll keep making them.

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August 15, 2019 3:32 pm

Urban Turf

ugh so sick of people saying something will be the “the new marvel.” ghostbusters, dark universe, dc, yaaaaawwwn, none of them have managed it. I just googled “become the next marvel” and even Disney said maker studios would become the next marvel. WWE tried to say they were the next marvel.

please stop saying that, studio people.

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August 14, 2019 5:23 am

TG47

Yah, but I bet you can decode the signals senior management are putting out to investors Michael Hall.

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August 14, 2019 4:11 am

AJinMoscow

What is more interesting than either JJTrek IV or Tarantino Trek is what the films will do with the reunited catalog. They could make the easy decision to re-imagine TNG as a film series with young actors once Picard is (hopefully) successful, or they can just bite the bullet and go with something new. ‘Risk is our business’said no one ever in Hollywood.

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August 13, 2019 7:59 pm

Darfyn

Tarantino is just about to retire , AJinMoscow , and I wouldn’t be surprised if the new consolidated Franchise gives him the movie contract . I also know of 3 other directors who have an interest to do a Trek movie (hint: there is something stopping these friends from riding and singing onto the soundstage ?) .

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August 19, 2019 6:11 pm

Lukas

Stupid question, which streaming service currently has the Trek films?
In Australia Netflix has all the series, but no idea who has the films, I’ve got them all on Blu-Ray anyway, just curious from a business standpoint whether or not they’ll all be on CBSAA or Netflix in other countries now.

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August 13, 2019 8:10 pm

Just Another Salt Vampire

There were recently a few on CBSAA (Star Trek 2, 3,4), but they rotate them on and off their very limited movie selection with no discernible pattern. They were all on Netflix, but I think now are all featured on Amazon. If CBSAA bulks up their movie section I would expect that to become the streaming home for the Trek movies.

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August 13, 2019 10:08 pm

TG47

It sounds as though ViacomCBS is intending that Showtime will have the movies, at least in the US.

However, the Showtime name has been licensed in other countries. Not sure how they will turn it around internationally.

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August 14, 2019 4:19 am

LaChatLunatique

Almost all films are now available on Amazon Prime.

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August 14, 2019 5:44 am

TG47

Not in Canada. Amazon Prime only has Star Trek 2009 here. BellMedia has almost all Trek content – both TV and films.

Distribution is clearly patchy at the global level. Likely ViacomCBS intends to bring the film and TV shows back to its own streamers as it expands internationally.

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August 14, 2019 6:02 am

Danpaine

Yeah was going to say, Lukas, like you, all Trek films can currently be found in my DVD collection…any streaming service can add/pull them and I couldn’t care less. :)

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August 14, 2019 7:22 am

ML31

My feeling as well. Any film that I want to see more than twice I own on disc. Since I have the Trek movies on disc, I don’t really care how many streaming services the jump to over the years.

That said, to be fair Lukas did say he was curious just from a business standpoint. Which I understand but don’t share the curiosity.

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August 15, 2019 8:21 am

TG47

Our public library has all the movies on disc.

Blockbuster may be gone, but public libraries’ collections are still viable.

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August 15, 2019 2:41 pm

TJ TREK

HULU has all the original films up to Nemesis except for Generations. Just recently watched Voyage Home on Hulu and forgot how good Bennets portion of the script was (for those who dont know, Harve Bennet wrote the future stuff in the 23rd century and Nick Myer wrote the stuff in 80s San Fransisco). Anyways, It was a fun rewatch. I’m excited to see what the merger will bring. DISCOVERY on the big screen?

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August 15, 2019 10:59 am

Lukas

P.S this is great news, hopefully DS9 and VOY on Blu-Ray, or at the very least on streaming! Can’t wait!

That’d be great, but what’s the logic behind thinking there’s even a remote chance that this merger would accomplish that goal?

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August 14, 2019 12:36 am

'Drew

They want to expend Trek as far as it will go with the full weight and resources of the merged company. As such, there will be a fever dream here and there that gets funded along the way. It’s certainly not guaranteed to be getting the stragglers on Blu-Ray, but the chances aren’t 0, either.

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August 14, 2019 6:53 am

Denny C

Enthusiasm is high after a merger but, yeah, Star Trek reaching the heights of the MCU or Star Wars is a bit of a stretch.

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August 14, 2019 10:57 am

ML31

If DS9 ever got a GOOD remaster they have at least one customer willing to purchase the set. According to the DS9 Doc they framed DS9 in a 16X9 ratio but aired it in standard. If they remaster would be cool if the set were released in that 16X9 ratio. I was very disappointed that the TOS remaster did not include any 16X9 shots. They could have. All the 100% new shots could have been in the new ratio but all the others, (even the ones that have some additions) could remain the original ratio. It would be like a feature film that had portions in IMAX. The Dark Knight swaps ratios back and forth. Missed opportunity.

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August 15, 2019 8:27 am

Kevin Attwood

I’m looking forward to seeing if the Netflix movie model filters through. Wouldn’t you love to see some made for TV (read home cinema) Star Trek movies? Stories sometimes touched on in canon but open for expansion. Something like:
– ‘The Battle at Worf 359’
– ‘World War 3’ a prequel to First Contact
– A ‘City On The Edge Of Forever’ sequel movie (not necessarily TOS cast)
– The Khitomer Massacre with the Enterprise C’
that sort of thing.
These could all have first runs on All Access.

What sort of made for TV Star Trek movies would you like to see?

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August 13, 2019 8:28 pm

TechNoir

Good question!

I’d like to see something set between Undiscovered Country and TNG. I don’t have anything particular in mind, but it’s a big space to tell a story or two.

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August 13, 2019 9:04 pm

ML31

I’ve been saying that for years, TechNoir! That is a hole in the time frame that has never been explored for some weird reason. I’d love to see a show set perhaps 5-10 years post TUC. But it feels like no one wants to go there for some odd reason.

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August 15, 2019 8:33 am

TG47

There is so much that could be done!

I’d still like to see some of the Relaunch TNG and Titan novels brought to the screen – even as another universe.

-Destiny trilogy and Control sequence certainly
– I’d really like to see Captain Ezri Dax and the slipstream capable USS Aventine.

-Una McCormack’s Cardassian post-war stories might be adaptable into a show for an audience that like complex political machinations.

There’s other novels like the Vanguard series in the late TOS-era that would work well as streaming series.

The anthology Trek books centred on the Bureau of Temporal Investigations and on the Starfleet Core of Engineers both provide interesting formats for what could be ‘Long Treks’ 45 minute single or double episode stories.

Both provide for Starfleet officers to investigate unusual situations – and with the SCE – solve problems.

I could see that occasional “Long Treks” would enable more experimentation, and having a regular BTI or SCE team involved could provide some continuity.

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August 15, 2019 10:21 am

Tiger2

I always love the way you think TG47!

All those sound really fun! And after watching the DS9 documentary an Ezri Fax spin off would be interesting.

With everything happening the possibilities are endless now.

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August 19, 2019 7:42 pm

alphantrion

George Takei wanted to tackle that time-frame with his pitch for a Captain Sulu show back in the day, but the TV guys wouldn’t have any of it and the closest we got was that Voyager episode “Flashback” that he guest starred in.

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August 15, 2019 12:53 pm

Tiger2

Yes I wouldn’t mind that either. I really don’t like prequels but something set post TUC/ pre TNG would be great and I would actually look forward to.

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August 19, 2019 7:38 pm

Legate Damar

I would love a Khitomer miniseries. Forget the Enterprise C though. Leave Starfleet mostly out of it. Make it a story about Mogh going to Khitomer to investigate a potential traitor, and being betrayed by Ja’Rod. Don’t bring Starfleet in until the end when Sergei Rozhenko finds the young Worf left alive in the aftermath of the massacre.

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August 13, 2019 9:44 pm

Just Another Salt Vampire

i want to see a Gary Seven movie. And the Romulan War movie that they wrote a script for but never produced. It would be cool to see the Planet of the Titans project from the 1970s realized also; that was an interesting concept.

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August 13, 2019 10:10 pm

ML31

Or maybe a the Gary 7 show that was intended but never materialized? I’m not sure how I would feel about that but would be willing to give it a shot. It obviously has more potential than a Section 31 show led by a cartoon homicidal leader.

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August 15, 2019 8:36 am

alphantrion

I don’t who could make a good Gary 7 though? Maybe Chris Vance.

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August 15, 2019 12:55 pm

The River Temarc

Of all these “off piste” series ideas, “Gene Roddenberry’s Assignment: Earth” is the only one that really interests me.

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August 15, 2019 1:29 pm

Garth Lorca

Definitely! The Ceti Alpha Chronicles should be a go.

But the “Battle at Worf 359”??? It’s Wolf 359 :-)

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August 14, 2019 4:05 am

TG47

Be Kind Garth, predictive spelling can be very aggressive.

I try to reread my posts right away to catch the changes my spell checker makes, but I frequently miss some.

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August 14, 2019 5:16 am

'Drew

I would watch Worf 359. No question.

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August 14, 2019 6:54 am

kitbashcanon

yeah a story about a clone war where Worf clones are used. it could be the personal story of Worf number 359.

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August 14, 2019 11:13 am

KevinA Melbourne Australia

Got it! By the time I realised the typo, couldn’t get back in to edit. D’Oh!

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August 18, 2019 11:59 pm

'Drew

Long Treks, eh? I like it.

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August 14, 2019 6:54 am

PEB

I would watch a film that centers on or deals with Wolf 359. I mean the battle itself is a massacre not so much a battle but it could always deal with the fallout or ramifications. Could be a great story for a film made for ALL ACCESS. I have a feeling we’ll end up seeing more of that.

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August 14, 2019 8:23 am

Tek

Well, Nick Meyers was working on a miniseries for Khan. So they’re obviously already thinking about doing that.

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August 14, 2019 8:48 am

kitbashcanon

I still would like to see a Post-War Reconstruction story about all the possible geopolitical fallout that comes after the Dominion War. I always imagined some sort of political chaos ensued…rogue break-away warlords; Orion Crime Syndicates growing strong and menacing, and often the only suppliers of the necessaries for life to carry on; mop-up operations by the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans trying to hold a battered alliance together, whose citizens no longer care about such things and are sick to death of war; dealing with separatist movements; that sort of thing as background to veterans’ stories and dealing with PTSD, strained relations, and such dramatic-type storylines.

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August 14, 2019 11:27 am

Phillip Thorne

Many of those are addressed in the Pocket novels (for values of “see” which equal “read”): a secession movement by Andor, machinations in the UFP presidential administration, rise of and dissension within the so-called Typhon Pact (Breen, Gorn, Tzenkethi, etc.), refugees when a new Borg offensive destroys multiple planets, aspirational attempts by Starfleet to return to pure exploration with the _Titan_ and _Voyager_-led-back-to-Delta fleet.

The books provide *some* insight to UFP civilians and members of other powers, but most of the action is still centered on Starfleet characters.

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August 15, 2019 10:49 am

Marvin the Martian

How about a Trek multiverse? That would open worlds of possibilities!

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August 14, 2019 5:46 pm

ML31

To be honest, none of those hold any particular interest to me. Especially the WWIII thing. I wouldn’t mind seeing a Romulan War limited series…

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August 15, 2019 8:32 am

Theoden_of_ODU

I would be totally down for that, I’ve been suggesting to friends (and on forums) the idea of a Trek anthology series for about a decade. I’d go for either full blown “TV” movies every few months, or 45-80 minute long stand-alone episodes in a TV season.

This could be the kind of place that some creativity could really develop without being shackled to an entire season or a huge budget film that might make the execs hesitant to take a chance. If some of these stories are well received, I could see them getting “sequel” episodes or future movies, maybe even a full blown spin-off series if it really resonates with the audience.

They could intersperse CGI heavy episodes with some more low-key “cerebral” stories to help even out the budget, think of it like alternating stories like “Best of Both Worlds” and “Inner Light”. They could also save on the budgets by focusing on limited number of eras per season/year to help reduce the costs. They they can redress the era-appropriate sets and reuse costumes as needed.

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August 15, 2019 11:44 am

The River Temarc

I have no interest in an anthology series. Trek is supposed to be about its characters and seeing them grow.

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August 15, 2019 1:31 pm

VZX

Stoked. It’ll be like the 90s with new TV shows on the air and movies every two years! But now with streaming! And it will all be connected like the 90s Trek and current MCU. This is a good time to be a Star Trek fan

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August 13, 2019 8:52 pm

A34

“Star Trek’ Poised To Become New Marvel As CBS & Viacom Merger Brings Franchise Under One Fleet”

I wouldn’t put much faith in that headline.

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August 13, 2019 9:30 pm

Thorny

The headline has a question mark in it now, though. Which is better.

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August 14, 2019 6:24 am

'Drew

Marginally. Before click-bait came along, a question mark meant write a new headline.

Well, I would just like to see all forms of Trek….ahem….Live Long and Prosper! ;-)

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August 13, 2019 10:39 pm

MattR

Yeah, that wasn’t from CBS or Viacom. The Deadline writers wanted to make a click-bait headline/story based off of nothing except Bakish saying they wanted to leverage Star Trek across different platforms.

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August 14, 2019 1:34 am

Danpaine

Yeah that actually drew a chuckle out of me.

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August 14, 2019 7:25 am

PEB

You’re reading too much into that. The new marvel in terms of it being the new shared universe (with the potential of being very successful with it’s fanbase). That being said, article headlines are really ridiculous these days.

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August 14, 2019 8:25 am

A34

Star Trek was already in a shared universe. It doesn’t need to be like marvel. Marvel is awful.

Yeah, twenty four hours later the business pages are a better indicator of what’s going on. The dump the broader market is taking aside, CBS shares are taking a hit because of structural issues at Viacom. To the plus, the combined entity is being looked at as a content provider for other services and for CBSAA. As far as this being some sort of new golden age for Trek (was there ever really one to begin with), that’s way to early to speculate on. The business pages are reporting that the production units are going to maintain their own operations for the time being. That does mean no Trek on the big screen for the next few years….

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August 14, 2019 10:38 am

Mike

While this sounds all well and good for US customers, when will CBS All Access be making it’s expansion into other territories like Europe?

Disney+ is scheduled to launch in the US in November 2019, with a tentative launch in Europe within 6 months after the US.

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August 13, 2019 10:45 pm

danielcw

CBS isn’t really a brand in Europe though. Viacom has all the known brands, like MTV, Comedy Central, and last but not least Paramount.

So a) they need a new name, and b) they won’t magically have all the US CBS All Access content from the U.S. available then.

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August 13, 2019 11:26 pm

DIGINON

CBS has sold off Discovery to Netflix and Picard to Amazon for the international market. They may not be able to just pull it back quickly and run it on their own service. Also, from what we’ve heard, the deals with Netflix and Amazon cover a large part of the production cost of those shows. If CBS were to cut ties with Netflix and Amazon they would have to foot the bill themselves which would be a big financial risk. Basically, they would need to get a lot of new international subscribers very fast.

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August 14, 2019 3:46 am

TG47

They will be definitely be behind in the streaming market internationally.

They have Ten in Australia and have started a CBSAA in Canada, but they will have to buy or start up new services in other countries.

Likewise, Showtime is a US market only service – they sold the license to the name in a few other countries but it’s not theirs and isn’t showing the same movies.

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August 14, 2019 5:25 am

MattR

But they can leverage what Viacom has internationally. According to a new deadline article today, Viacom owns Channel 5 in the UK and has ties throughout Europe and India. They don’t need to use the CBS name, while they didn’t do in Australia. However, if they’re able to pull out some of their content from current international deals (or if some allow them to air things concurrently), while CBS isn’t a huge global brand, their shows are still some of the most watched shows globally.

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August 14, 2019 9:46 am

TG47

Yes MattR, but I don’t think that Viacom had streamers either…just broadcast or cable channels.

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August 14, 2019 2:07 pm

MattR

Yeah, Viacom only has a domestic streaming service, Pluto (which I hadn’t heard of until recently). But the combined entity can piggyback off the international channels they own to expand CBSAA. This is what CBS did in Australia – they owned Channel 10 there, and with the name recognition in Australia, launched “Ten All Access.”

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August 15, 2019 11:28 am

TG47

Got it. I hadn’t realized Ten was a broadcast channel rather than a streamer.

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August 15, 2019 2:32 pm

ML31

Actually, I’m not so sure how good it is for US customers. With everyone wanting their own streaming service they will pull all their content from the others. Thus requiring subscribers to pay more than ever to get what they got before. Not sure how long that model can sustain itself.

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August 15, 2019 8:40 am

TG47

Well, it’s essentially a return to the original radio and television broadcast model with a small number of major networks producing and disseminating their own content – and a small number of megastudios controlling a lot of content production.

The big difference is that with a few exceptions like Pluto, much of the access will be paid for by subscriptions rather than advertising. Which means that we’ll be paying with our money rather than by our time watching their ads.

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August 15, 2019 10:00 am

Phillip Thorne

Exactly. There have been so many mutations that people can’t recall (so I suspect) all the changes in their entertainment time-and-dollar budgets, and fall back on “golden age” and “grass is greener” thinking. “I paid one cable bill, flipped channels quickly, and my TiVo found the programs … now I rotate between streaming subscriptions and wait for new seasons to be licensed by somebody.”

I really want to see an infographic that compares the “before” and “after” of the U.S. television industry (circa 2000 and 2020), vis-a-vis studios, channels, intermediaries and money flows — I might have to research and draw it myself.

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August 15, 2019 10:58 am

ML31

Except it doesn’t seem to be a small number. It seems to be an ever growing number. The system can certainly work with a small number. But start throwing more and more into the mix? Something will have to give.

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August 15, 2019 11:23 am

TG47

I don’t see how Netflix, Hulu and Amazon will survive on their own content once the content producers walk their libraries back to their own streamers.

They just don’t create enough content themselves. Renting others’ IP is not a sustainable business model.

They need to buy libraries or will be absorbed down the line.

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August 15, 2019 2:37 pm

Garth Lorca

Netflix is already dead in the water. That’s true. They have spent far too much money on future projects that will never pay off against such steep competition. They are this decade’s Orion Pictures. Their content will be sold off to competitors as soon as the house of cards crumbles under its own weight.

Hulu is basically the adult streaming service of Disney and the perfect place to dump all the R-Rated and TV-MA content Disney has acquired through the Fox takeover.

Amazon will survive almost anything. They don’t depend on their streaming service that much. It’s nice extra business, nothing more, nothing less. Whether the number of original content like the Lord of the Rings series, The Expanse or The Boys will be kept, depends. But only politics could kill Amazon via a forced split-up.

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August 15, 2019 3:38 pm

ML31

People have ripped on Netflix disc service. But that disc service is still there and still makes them a ton of money even though they spend nothing promoting it. Without it, they would have died long ago. That disc service might *MIGHT* keep them around for a while after deals with studios end and their library shrinks. I think that is why they are producing so much new stuff. An attempt to increase their library before its too late. But, and this is important, the disc side is unaffected by streaming deals. Netflix has a ton of stuff in their disc library today that they do not have on their streaming side.

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August 16, 2019 8:29 am

A34

The disc service is slowly dying.

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August 16, 2019 12:02 pm

ML31

So is everyone and everything.

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August 16, 2019 12:11 pm

A34

I’m going to live forever.

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August 17, 2019 8:09 am

alphantrion

I wonder if this means they will dust off that proposed Khan miniseries from Nick Meyer, or whether that boat has sailed completely?

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August 13, 2019 11:42 pm

Thorny

I wish it ‘Bon Voyage’ and hope it never comes back. Seriously, that and Section 31 are two shows that don’t have any appeal to me at all.

Anyone who expects Star Trek to somehow turn into the new Marvel is trying to cash in all their pyrite. Trek has always been a fairly niche thing. The good news for whoever owns it is that Trekkies will put their money where their mouth is, so they are — WE are — easy to exploit. Continue making Trek exclusively for All Access, and you’re going to get that money on a continual basis. That’s a good enough result right there.

Thinking you might be able to regularly produce two to three Trek movies per year that will gross $500 million or more worldwide is faulty thinking. Never gonna happen. If you manage the brand carefully, you MIGHT get one such movie every few years; but beyond that, you’re dreaming.

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August 14, 2019 12:42 am

Michael Hall

Always a niche thing except in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when TNG actually (and very unexpectedly) became a real staple in popular culture, featured on the front cover of publications from Entertainment Weekly to Time and Newsweek. The series finale was, IIRC, the fourth most-viewed event in TV history, a remarkable accomplishment for a syndicated program.

Viacom/CBS would no doubt love to see the franchise return to those glory days, but it’s anyone’s guess if it’ll ever happen.

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August 14, 2019 11:21 am

Garth Lorca

Yeah, Star Trek WAS a niche thing, but I guess that was mainly due to the fact it never really delivered upon its actual promise / premise. Those shows had many great episodes, but for some reason, they failed to explore those strange new worlds and new life they talked about in the main titles, be it budgetary reasons, lack of creativity or both. Instead we got the riddle of the week, the holodeck malfunction of the week, the alien forehead of the week, all filmed in the same tiresome locations, if at all set on alien planets…

But if Star Trek truly started to delve into believable alien worlds, dealing with alien life beyond those forehead-of-the-week cardboard stand-ins, a bit of fun, a bit of blood, some actual scares, some tasteful eroticism, it COULD be even more successful than Star Wars and Avatar combined.

I don’t know whether “we” can ever outscore the MCU in dollars or movies made, but staying afloat of a struggling Star Wars brand is a real possibility (and I AM a Star Wars fan).
Also the MCU is just a (huge) part of the Marvel Multiverse. If you add the Spidey classics, the entire X-verse, the numerous standalone movies, the extensive animated back catalogue, it is pointless to challenge Marvel (or DC) in numbers or incarnations.
But Star Wars, that’s a different beast. That franchise has always been our main competitor and it could be done…

Star Trek doesn’t get within shouting distance of Star Wars in popularity. The lowest-grossing Star Wars film (not counting “The Clone Wars”), “Solo,” still made a comparable amount to the highest-grossing Star Trek film — and “Solo” is perceived as such a bomb that people think the brand is struggling as a result.

Trek will never be the mainstream success Star Wars is, at least not at the same level.

Internationally Star Wars as a bigger following (though STID made more money than Solo even internationally), but not in the most pivotal future market that is China. Beyond made $65 million in China, STID made $57 million! Solo only grossed $16 million there, even Episode VIII was down to $42 million.

China is another reason an R-Rated Tarantino flick is a BAD move. Trek is very popular in China, but most R-Rated movies are rejected by the authorities there. There is no age control there, it’s either legal or illegal and an R-Rated movie would most certainly be prohibited.

That said, The Rise of Skywalker is the last of the Skywalker saga. After that, they have to start from scratch and those movies MIGHT be closer in success to Solo than to the original saga. So it is NOT entirely impossible for Trek to catch up with that franchise, though it remains unlikely to say the least.

You’re obviously not wrong about “Solo,” but that movie is — again, with the exception of “The Clone Wars” — a complete outlier among Star Wars movies. Compare the box office for any of the proper Star Wars films (or even “Rogue One”) to that of any of the Trek films, and Trek gets nowhere close. Even the allegedly-much-reviled “The Last Jedi” did well over twice the business ST09 did.

My point being, there is zero precedent for thinking that Trek has the ability to become a financial juggernaut in the same way Star Wars has historically been.

Which is fine! It need not in order to be successful. It’s just that if there are people out there with the expectation of that happening — to say nothing of the sort of success Marvel’s movies have been having — then that’s a recipe for a perceived failure.

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August 15, 2019 2:33 pm

Garth Lorca

Yeah, high expectations may kill the goat. That’s true, but for both parties. Trek being as successful as the nine original Star Wars movies is an illusion, but it is also not written in stone that the new Star Wars outings from 2022 onwards will live up to those numbers. Neither Ryan Johnson nor the former GoT producers Weiss and Benioff have proven to be unfailable when it counts.

So Trek has a pretty good chance of keeping up with FUTURE Star Wars flicks IF the right decisions are made. It could be on par with those numbers which would be a tremendous success for Trek and a (near) failure for Wars…

And as far as TV shows are concerned, Trek is still ahead by a longshot…

Anyway, I like both franchises. I just happen to like Trek a lot more :-)

Same here! And on TV, Trek is the unquestioned champion in that showdown.

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August 16, 2019 12:04 am

tony

‘Those shows had many great episodes, but for some reason, they failed to explore those strange new worlds and new life they talked about in the main titles’

its the movies that have failed to follow through on that promise.

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August 15, 2019 1:53 am

Garth Lorca

“its the movies that have failed to follow through on that promise.”

Yeah, true. The issue with the movies is that, at some point, every movie wanted to be another TWOK. TMP and TFF, as well as parts of BEYOND have some exploration in them, but apart from that, they tried to copypaste the Khan villain theme time and again.

The shows had a tad more variety but due to budgetary restraints and lack of good writing, the got stuck in a different corner of lacklusterness. I don’t want to be overcritical. I’ve been a fan two thirds of my live and there are hardly any other genres (CERTAINLY not CBMs) that have a greater variety and diversity than Trek, but it could be so much more if they only dared…

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August 15, 2019 1:52 pm

Cygnus-X1

Oh, man… I wasn’t calling the poster “stu-pid,” just as James Carville wasn’t calling any specific individual “stu-pid” in the quote that I paraphrased. If someone happens to be ignorant of American history — and of the most famous political/economic quote in American history — that would certainly not be my fault. I’m speaking proper English here, more or less. I believe I meet the standards of reasonable communication in this language.

Let’s try it again…

Garth Lorca

“Riddle of the week” is as characteristically Trek as anything. Most TOS episodes involve our protagonists solving some sort of problem. TNG was the most popular Trek series ever. It averaged around 11 million weekly viewers at its peak. Those “forehead of the week” episodes often dealt with substantial socio-political issues. Science-fiction concepts, rational problem-solving and/or socio-political issues is what nearly all TOS episodes are about; and TNG did a brilliant and financially successful job of continuing along those lines while expanding the breadth, depth and range of the concepts. So, what are you complaining about? That TNG didn’t have more blood and “tasteful eroticism?” Do you really thank that is an appropriate complaint about that show? It looks like you are complaining that TNG wasn’t shallow and superficial enough. Are you just not a fan of the original Star Trek and wish that TNG had been nothing like it?

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August 15, 2019 6:33 am

ML31

Garth, much of what you said about TNG was correct. The forehead of the week got real old real fast. It was tolerated because I was aware of the budget issues and that said, I think they did a pretty darn good job with what they had. But holodeck malfuntions (as you mentioned) and weak character stories were a huge problem. TNG worked best when it stayed as far away from characters as possible and dealt with real Treky sci-fi like issues.

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August 15, 2019 8:48 am

Garth Lorca

It wasn’t just TNG, but VOY and ENT (and some of DS9) as well. Those 700+ episodes could be only a prelude to what Star Trek is capable of. We have seen nothing yet. The best is yet to come :-)
That is not to say that there aren’t loads of true gems among those 28 original seasons, but more than half of it were unambitioned fillers…

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August 15, 2019 1:46 pm

Phillip Thorne

Re: budget — I’ve been screening DS9 for the first time in 15 years and the production efficiencies are suddenly very obvious: Klingons et al are instantly recognizable because they’re always wearing the same uniforms from the costume department. Jefferies tube give actors something to fiddle with, but don’t actually make sense –what if a circuit breaks *between* access panels? Odo retains his shape even when he should shift. The console graphics are *usually* generic and meaningless.

DSC with its much-vaunted budget hasn’t entirely fixed those issues. I’m still puzzled by the cramped dentist couches in Sickbay, or “let’s do our non-Spore-related work on the consoles in the Spore Drive room, because it’s a standing set”.

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August 15, 2019 11:10 am

Marja

Those Discovery Sickbay beds, outside of being adjustable, are AWFUL. At least add a foot or two to the ends of them for patients like Saru.

Heck, even Stamets’ feet were hanging off the end weren’t they?

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August 16, 2019 12:43 am

Cygnus-X1

Why are all my posts being deleted?

Are these comments about TNG uncritiqueable for some reason?

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August 16, 2019 11:19 am

Disinvited

Cygnus-X1,

I don’t know. But in the podcast thread it is cracking me up that the modbot keeps blackholing all my posts on how QT is a fan of Shatner’s other series, TJH. Because, you know, Hook3r is a no-no!

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August 16, 2019 3:46 pm

Disinvited

Cygnus-X1,

This is not a guarantee. But you might have more success if 1st you post a basic, free of trigger letter sequences, post and then use the “Edit” function to add in all your flourishes.

The edit function does not give you enough time to compose extensive additional text on the fly so it is best to have it ready to paste in before you activate it.

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August 16, 2019 4:35 pm

Cygnus-X1

(sigh) Ah, screw it.

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August 16, 2019 5:45 pm

Disinvited

Sad to say, but from the beginning, way back, I’ve found that if you find yourself composing a multi-paragraph response in a TrekMovie’s comment, it is best to copy it to the clipboard and transfer it to a word processor for final editing before posting.

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August 18, 2019 11:25 am

AJinMoscow

Was it ever REALLY the case that the Trek films and TV properties couldn’t share characters and/or plot points because of the separate ownership structure? I mean, couldn’t you have negotiated a one-off contract that states, for example, that “Star Trek: X TV Episode Y is allowed to reference events/characters in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (specifically, character “Sybok”), and it gets done? In this respect, I assume that ST:Picard referencing the destruction of Romulus in ST09 takes into account the re-merger of the two companies.

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August 14, 2019 12:50 am

Nachum

I do remembers some official statements about how they couldn’t do some things because of the split. Like you said, they might have been gotten around easily enough, but maybe they just didn’t want to bother because it wasn’t a big deal. I can’t remember exactly what the problems were, though.

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August 14, 2019 2:37 am

TG47

CBS held the rights and Paramount had been licensed to make more movies.

How expansive that license was is something TrekMovie has covered previously.

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August 14, 2019 5:26 am

ML31

As far as I can tell, there was literally NOTHING preventing Discovery from lifting ANYTHING from the movies. They could have dropped in Sybok whenever they wanted but opted not to. (Another mistake on their part, IMHO) The only thing they couldn’t do was make a Discovery feature film. That right was held by Paramount.

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August 15, 2019 8:51 am

Tiger2

Honestly, the future of Star Trek has been really exciting for me once the Picard show was announced and nearly everything since then from sending Discovery to the 32nd century to Lower Decks has really made me quite excited about the future.

But now I think the plans they ALREADY had for it is going to get even bigger now! Its basically now on the level of Disney/Marvel getting X Men and Fantastic Four back (and looks like JUST in time ;)) but for Trek this basically means the movie side of things. I am very excited to see where this will all go now and now the next Trek film can really feel connected as they always did (assuming they moved on from the Kelvin cast). But even THAT is no longer a big deal anymore since we all know the KU was made because Paramount wanted their own universe. Well, its no longer an issue anymore. CBS may even push for the movies. This big push and all the possibilities now could make 90’s Trek look like 80’s Trek lol.

And yes MAYBE All Access will start to feel like a real streaming site now lol. I mean ACTUAL movies!!! And maybe that will include giving the Star Trek movies a permanent home like the shows. I don’t know how this stuff works but what does it say when you can go on Amazon Prime and find all the shows, two-thirds of the films and practically every Star Trek documentary in the last 10 years on there (and yes, for free with the exception of What We Leave Behind but can even rent or buy that) when the company that OWNS it is lucky to get 1 film on its site and doesn’t have a single documentary anywhere. And here’s another thing, on Amazon, you can ALSO download basically every Star Trek soundtrack out there FOR FREE, just as long as you have Prime. I have about 70 songs from TOS to Voyager including most of the films on my phone.

AA should be driving hard to make that site the one stop place for all things Trek: Shows, films and documentaries even if its not exclusive to it. If you have EVERY medium of Trek on there while you are also pumping out new shows every year you will have the fans onboard all year as well.

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August 14, 2019 1:14 am

DeanH

Yeah this seems to be a much bigger media deal than I realized. CBSAA will apparently not only have 100,000 plus tv shows but one report says they will now have nearly 4000 movies they can add to their library. That should make them a major player in the streaming market, but time will tell. If that happens, then this is very good news for us Star Trek fans. Plus having both the motion pictures and all the television shows under one roof can only be a positive.

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August 14, 2019 3:31 pm

ML31

If CBS wants AA to be something they cannot share anything. If they become the one stop shop for Trek then they cannot share streaming rights for TNG with Netflix or Amazon or anyone. It must be theirs and theirs alone. Great for CBS. Awful for consumers.

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August 15, 2019 8:53 am

Marja

Except that Netflix has a 99-year contract to be able to show all the Trek series except Discovery. Can CBS/Paramount invalidate that?

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August 16, 2019 1:07 pm

ML31

If true then good for Netflix for thinking about the future. How many of their others deals are like that?

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August 16, 2019 2:05 pm

Garth Lorca

All of this seems to be great news. But if they want to fight for the hearts, minds and allowance money of the kids, they MUST cancel those Tarantino movie ambitions ASAP. They can’t have both… trying to be the next Star Wars and going fully adult at the same time won’t work out.

Apart from that… good luck! Finally turning Trek into the multimedia franchise it deserves to be is a tough but admirable endeavour…

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August 14, 2019 4:02 am

Trek in a Cafe

There are probably ways for Tarantino to make a film that doesn’t destroy what they are planning. Perhaps not as we are all thinking now – with the TOS/Kelvin crew – but with different characters. We are all assuming we really know what the film is.

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August 14, 2019 2:32 pm

Garth Lorca

Yeah, there MIGHT be pockets within the fabric of Trek that could justify “Pulp Fiction in Space”. If he goes for the Mirror Universe, he’d be a perfect match. If it’s different shady characters (Section 31, outlaw space pirates) it could also work…

But that’s idle speculation. So far he has only mentioned that it’s “the Pine timeline” somehow connected to Primeverse TOS. So we are talking about the very core properties of the franchise. The most iconic characters, the ones that started it all, the guys who’ve been our role models, idols, icons, for over 50 years… And that treasure is being handed over to a person who is famous for turning every movie into a bloody nightmare towards the end, blowing himself up on screen and escalating overstylized violence in the most cynical fashion. And no, he’s not willing to restrain his bloodlust in any way, promising to give us “Pulp Fiction in space”… And no, he was NOT refering to a non-linear narrative structure only. Those are just illfated glimmers of hope. We are going to get the “real deal”…

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August 15, 2019 1:24 pm

TG47

There likely may be a way – but I can’t imagine Tarantino agreeing to be fenced in or accept the oversight needed to keep a film on-brand, marketable outside the United States, and within budget.

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August 15, 2019 2:29 pm

Theoden_of_ODU

I actually like the idea of a Tarantino Trek movie, but it has to be PG-13. I know that Discovery is TV-MA but Trek on the big screen has a hard enough time finding an audience (ST09 is the exception), an “R” rating would only work if the film’s budget is realistically small so it doesn’t have that hurdle to overcome.

Most of the scripted shows I watch are probably TV-MA and many of my favorite films are R-rated, so it’s not the rating on its own I don’t like. I have no problems watching an R-rated films, but I think it’s highly inappropriate for Trek. I just know that a lot of fans like me would also be turned off by the concept.

I don’t think that Tarantino would accept the shackles of filming a PG-13 film, but it’s pretty much the only way I think this actually would ever get made.

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August 15, 2019 1:13 pm

Garth Lorca

The R-Rating itself is a non-issue for me. If it wasn’t Tarantino we are talking about. There are many R-Rated movies that I COULD imagine being part of the Star Trek universe with some minor tweeks. Alien, Matrix, hell, even Event Horizon… all you’d need to do is replace some of the more cynical main characters. The recent Alien prequels already felt a lot like Star Trek though being R-Rated.

I’d LOVE to see R-Rated Trek (if it wasn’t for the China issue), but Tarantino is a whole different beast. If he follows his well-established formula, it’ll be full of disgusting interhuman violence, not the sort of sci-fi gore that might work, but the out-of-thing-air shootout painting the walls red, green, pink and blue with alien blood. And QT will say…”right, they had those neat neon-colored walls on TOS, I’ll do that with blood!” It’s that attitude I’m afraid of, not some genre-appropriate guts and gore.

As for DISCO being TV-MA… I’m over it. There were some tricky moments in season 1 and that Klingon show in Season 2 but since the days of Berg and Harberts are over, there hasn’t been much over-the-top grizzliness, apart from Pike in wheelchair! And THAT was spot on!

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August 15, 2019 2:29 pm

Marja

If they’re going to have a kids’ Trek cartoon … why not an R-rated grown-ups’ Trek movie?

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August 16, 2019 12:47 am

hooch

I would LOVE to have Nick and Comedy Central content in All Access. That would be a huge boon for the service.

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August 14, 2019 5:59 am

Thorny

“We were talking before about 1,000 hours of kids programming, well now we have the best in the world with the number one kid’s brand in the world.”

Um, okay. Isn’t the number one kid’s brand in the world that little company called Disney?

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August 14, 2019 6:21 am

Garth Lorca

Disney may have some very popular content but given the huge extensive back catalogue of Nick cartoons and comedy, I’m not sure it is more in total running hours. Remember, one of the reasons Disney bought Fox was to aquire more content for the Disney+ service. So quite obviously, they didn’t think of their previous content being enough…

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August 14, 2019 7:43 am

MattR

I’m not sure. More kids probably watch Nickelodeon than Disney Channel, which is probably what they’re meant to emphasize. I know my niece and nephew watch a lot more of Nick

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August 14, 2019 9:57 am

TG47

This seems like a confabulation between the promotional lines on CBSAA licencing streaming of DHX Media’s library in the US and ViacomCBS’s hype about their own kids content (from Nickelodeon, CBS and Paramount).

I’m not sure how Disney stacks up against Nickelodeon in the kids TV market globally. But Nickelodeon may be stronger on the television side.

Neither Nickelodeon or Disney is very strong in kids’ programming that meets educational standards. Both have viewed themselves as entertainment companies.

But kids broadcasters outside the US often have tighter ratings requirements for children under 8 years, as well as educational requirements.

That’s why many parents outside don’t find US programming and films up to snuff as a regular diet for their kids. Further, a lot of better US kids content is developed by partners outside of the US – including much of PBS kids programming.

Nickelodeon has at least had products like Blues Clues and Dora the Explorer.

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August 14, 2019 12:39 pm

I’mPaul

So now that it’s one company, we’re going to need four separate streaming apps?

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August 14, 2019 7:27 am

PEB

Not trying to drop a live grenade here but would this change anything for fan films? Like if – for the sake of saying – a group of young film students who have always wanted to make a Trek film. Once the merger is complete, would any of the existing rules need to be revamped or do they stand? Asking for a friend…

I happen to think the fan films have more heart , fun and passion than the Franchise Zombie-Mashes will ever have .

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August 19, 2019 5:41 pm

Darfyn

All CEO’s and their Execs are bastards , PEB . The only olive branch they will offer the fans is maybe an olive pip flicked in their eye !

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August 19, 2019 5:45 pm

Darfyn

Look PEB , just tell your friend to make his fan film how he wants and how long he wants . And to show it to who he intended to (class project film) . Don’t tell the Franchise , because they’re not really interested , and if you do tell them , the film could be tied up in red tape for months , even years .

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August 19, 2019 5:55 pm

Sterling Archer

Star Trek is not going to become the “new Marvel”, not as long as the same gang of Gilmore Girls rejects is in charge. You have to clear out Kurtzman and company before anything has even a remote chance of getting better. Otherwise we’re stuck with Mikey Spock and “lawless teens”.

Why change the group that made Trek actually exciting again? We could have the boring of the Berman/Braga Trek’s again, but then the franchise dies off, again.

Shows that the best of the TNG era was dark episode like Chain of Command, or not handled by them (DS9 Season 3-7)

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August 14, 2019 10:49 am

TG47

You lost me Mystical Digital when you said the best of TNG was the dark stuff.

But it just goes to show that Kurtzman has the right strategy by offering different Trek products for different market niches.

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August 14, 2019 12:18 pm

A34

He’s right the dark stuff was the best. The Borg two parter is what got me into Star Trek when I was a kid.

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August 15, 2019 12:01 pm

Tiger2

You’re basing this on just one show, Discovery, which is NOT a home run in the fanbase. Far from it lol. And I also find it funny the episodes that people seem to really like are actually the episodes of the Berman era like The Sanest Man and New Eden. The ‘dark’ Discovery episodes turned a lot of fans off and EXACTLY why they made the show more like classic Trek in season 2 more fun and adventurous.

They tried to make it feel more like BSG (ironically again a show ran by the guy who had a large influence in the Berman era, Ronald D. Moore) but it really didn’t work. Thank god season 2 went a different way.

And I wish people stopped saying it ‘died off’, guys it ran for 18 straight years lol. How many franchises do you know run for nearly 20 years WITHOUT breaks? Star Wars and stuff like that doesn’t count because it didn’t. MAYBE the new Star Trek will run for that long but the jury is faaaaar out on that. We need more than Discovery on to see how feasible that is, but with all the shows coming it can run for maybe a decade at least before it may need a break.

If they took a break between Voyager and Enterprise it probably would’ve went on another ten years there as well. Fans were getting tired. I know, I was one of them.

While I don’t disagree with the comment, it would not have mattered when Enterprise came along, because the franchise was getting tired. I knew there was going to be trouble in the first season – they did try to envision pre-Federation earth, and within a few episodes they were trying their hardest to make it look and feel like TNG. If the current resurrection of Trek is going to have legs, they aren’t going to get away with the formula they ran with in the TNG era. They are going to have to tell different stories, they can’t all be starship focused, and yes, they are going to have to embrace different genres and formats.

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August 15, 2019 8:56 am

Tiger2

I completely agree Phil, which is exactly why DS9 is my favorite show for that reason. Which is why I wasn’t against the Section 31 show when it was announced (but have gone more cold on it since I seen what they did with them on Discovery but still willing to see what the actual show is). Also why I’m excited about Picard because it WON’T just be Starfleet on the Enterprise (but wouldn’t be against it either lol).

And to be fair when Enterprise was being made, they didn’t want it to be TNG either, it was the network that did. Berman originally saw Enterprise more like The Right Stuff and wanted the first season to take place on Earth but it was rejected by the network. It was clear UPN just wanted TNG spin offs because it was successful. My guess is neither Voyager or Enterprise would’ve been as similar if they got the leeway they had on DS9 but DS9 wasn’t on a network either.

And I will also say as much as some people hate Star Trek being on a streaming site and not a network, chances are it probably wouldn’t have the freedom to make the shows it want now if it was on CBS. As successful as that network is, it does have some of the blandest and generic shows around lol. It would probably be UPN all over again and standard Star Trek like TOS and TNG if Star Trek had landed there.

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August 15, 2019 3:40 pm

A34

If Discovery isn’t a Home Run with the fans, then why is it such a success?

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August 15, 2019 12:03 pm

TG47

It doesn’t have to be a home run with the longstanding base of Trek fans – it just has to be successful in its own market niche.

As long as enough of the fan-base watches Discovery and it attracts new viewers, it’s a success.

Don’t fall into ‘one-size-fits-all’ thinking A34.

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August 15, 2019 2:17 pm

ML31

Once again, that is subjective because it is completely dependent one what one determines a “success” is. Was it the most streamed property on CBSAA? Likely. In that sense yes. It was a success. Did it bring in the subscribers initially that CBS had been hoping? Not even close. In that sense, it was not.

If a viewer felt that Discovery is fantastic drama and wonderful TV, then they may think it a success. If another viewer saw it as garbage with weak characters and worse writing, then it was not.

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August 15, 2019 2:28 pm

Tiger2

I wasn’t trying to get into with the troll about how successful Discovery is. Yes clearly enough people are watching it right now to deem it a success, but that doesn’t make it a ‘home run’ with the fan base either. Clearly it isn’t or they wouldn’t have made ALL these crazy changes to it in season 2 and then basically rebooting the show COMPLETELY by sending it a thousand years into the future in season 3 lol. This was never what the show was intended to be. It was just suppose to be set in the 23rd century pre-TOS. Common sense tells you this drastic change is ONLY being done because they know fans have had trouble with the show and its setting since day one. No, it doesn’t mean all of them, but clearly enough or why change the show’s ENTIRE premise after just two seasons??? No Star Trek show has ever done this before.

They added a new foe like the Dominion or Xindi or brought on a new character but every show premise stayed the same. Discovery is the only one making such a big change and my guess is because they realized fans will continue to whine about the canon issues or how out of sync it feels compared to TOS and afraid many won’t ever give it a chance. I guess having Klingons look like Klingons again wasn’t enough for them.

But if Discovery was a true ‘home run’ they wouldn’t be redoing the entire show like this. I mean if it ain’t broke…

And yes its still Star Trek, its going to have fans watch it no matter what. As much as fans complained about Voyager, it was still UPNS top show for most of its run and lasted seven entire years. It was their number one show for five seasons even though it was dropping in the ratings. It wasn’t until wrestling showed up when the show dropped to number 2. Its exactly why Enterprise came because Voyager was such a huge success for that network. It was Enterprise that was the first Trek spin off to truly suffer ratings wise from the beginning but even THAT show had one of the biggest premieres with the ratings and funny enough had more people watch its first episode than Discovery’s pilot by 2 million people and Discovery was shown on freaking CBS…after football. Discovery has the lowest watched pilot in all the spin offs to this day and my guess easily the lowest watched spin off show because its on AA. ‘Home run’ clearly means something different today.

But I can certainly see Discovery being the top show on AA because what ELSE is on that site lol. That’s why we are getting so many new Trek shows now, because it proves it will at least get people to sign up. How MANY it get we have no clue since no one is sharing numbers but since nothing else on AA has any real interest for people outside of the other known brand, The Twilight Zone, its not exactly a shock either.

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August 15, 2019 3:57 pm

A34

The show is successful 😃 I can’t wait to see the Section 31 show.🤗

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August 15, 2019 10:00 pm

Methuselah

Of course. It’s been renewed twice and they are spinning a new series off from it.

THOSE ARE BOTH INCONTROVERTIBLE, OBJECTIVE AND ESTABLISHED FACTS!

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August 17, 2019 5:30 pm

ML31

From my perspective… The very first time fans saw Discovery and their production design and all the physical changes many were turned off before they even had a chance to get to know the characters and situations. I think it was confusing for many to see what looked like a 25th century ship in the 23rd. Yes, we all know the “you have to update” argument. And we know they could have updated while still reminding people of the era it was supposed to be in. I still don’t know if that was Fuller’s edict or what. Whatever it was, it was a mistake. And then, of course, what many saw as poor writing and weak characters only made the initial mistakes stand out even more.

Echoing what you said, clearly TBTB knew things weren’t working. Hence the changes in season 2 and the big change for season 3. Which history shows is usually not a good sign for a show. I recall Seaquest being moved a decade into the future after 2 seasons in an attempt to save a sinking show. And other shows have made similar moves. None have ever worked.

Some have argued that the reason we are getting a handful of new Trek shows is evidence of the success of STD. Perhaps. But I think it more likely that the creation of a STEU was always considered and was planned on happening down the line but the failure of Discovery to pull in the subscribers caused them to speed up the STEU. I guess we’ll never know for sure.

BTW… I saw the first 4 TZ’s on CBSAA. None were really any good at all. I read that CBS intentionally put what they considered the better ones up front to get the Trek subscribers to see them before canning the service in the hopes they would keep subscribing. From what I can tell the show has not been received very well at all. By viewers or critics. This has got to be a bit of a blow to CBS.

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August 16, 2019 9:14 am

Tiger2

We don’t disagree the problems started from the very beginning. I mean I still remember when the leaked picture of the Klingons in a break room dropped and the internet blew up lol. People were convinced its NO WAY they could be Klingons because they looked so different. That was already not a great sign of how people would react to some of the bigger changes they wanted to make of the universe.

And yes I was here the day the first trailer dropped and the responses were obvious from that point on how divisive this show was going to be in the fanbase. The funny thing is I was actually pretty positive on it, BUT I did think they would try to explain a lot of it in-universe too. Either way, it was clearly doing its own thing, which I have said a thousand times now probably wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if they made it clear it was a reboot but instead said it was suppose to fit all previous canon. I knew that was never going to really fly with a big segment of the base, especially fans who wanted a more accurate portrayal of this era.

And now just two seasons later, they figured the only way they can fix the show is by throwing it out of the way of ALL Star Trek canon completely. And I LOVE the idea as you know, but yeah, I don’t disagree, I don’t know just putting it in a far future will just fix everything but it probably should’ve been a post Nemesis show from the beginning and it would’ve cut down on so much division over the show. Notice no one is fighting over Picard and how it ‘fits’ because UNLIKE Discovery they clearly made a conscious choice to make it fall in with the TNG era, just updated with no big radical changes. And of course I think its a big lesson they learned from Discovery obviously.

But as I said, while I think its a success, how big of one is probably not so black and white. We just don’t have any barometers to judge it like all the other shows. Discovery basically lives in a bubble the other shows didn’t because they were on traditional TV. There are still people out there that don’t even know a new Star Trek show is airing. Merchandise is zilch when compared to all the other shows. Even Enterprise had a toy collection when it aired. You could buy the NX-01 in toy stores.

But I’m not as cynical about it as you and don’t think the show is on the verge of being cancelled. You thought it could end in second season and maybe again after third season. I don’t see ANY proof the show is going anywhere for awhile. It may not be the huge hit CBS thought it would be but if its the ONLY show bringing in any real subscribers to that site (and so far it seems to be) then its no way its getting cancelled lol. DIS is the only big brand that gets AA any real attention now. As you said TZ seems to be a disappointment although it also got renewed, but what is driving AA is clearly Star Trek and we can’t say DIS had nothing to do with that. It must’ve at least told them the show proved people will sign up to watch.

I think the show will go on for a few more seasons at this point. At least up to season 4 or 5. I say that because by then there will be tons more of Star Trek on including Picard, probably Section 31 and who knows, maybe even a Pike show. By then it will be enough Star Trek on and maybe DIS will be the first to go being the oldest, especially if Picard is drawing in a lot more fans and frankly I don’t see how it won’t UNLESS Discovery jumping into the future really works and drives huge interest in the show that Picard is doing. It’s first trailer will probably tell us a lot. And we know third season is when the shows at least get better.

But saying its a success because it got renewed to season 3 is really low expectations, especially for a Star Trek show. If you base it on that criteria only, every Trek show is a success lol. Now if it can run 7 seasons like the 24th centuries shows did, then OK, but the jury is still waaaaaaay out if its going to run anywhere close to that.

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August 16, 2019 12:32 pm

ML31

We do agree it should have been a post Nemesis show or if they insisted on the wholesale changes then it really needed to be called a straight reboot. I think the show would have still had problems but the look and feel of it would not longer be one of them.

Before one episode aired I figured they would get at least two seasons. And most likely a third. I still think it possible the 3rd will be the last. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 4th out of it depending on how things go. Not just on the Discovery end but the other STEU end.

Funny thing is, Picard is 20 years later. The literally could changed everything about the look and it would not be a problem at all. They actually got this bass-ackwards. Discovery needed to look more like the Pike era and if they wanted to balls out with changes, Picard was the obvious show to do that. As far as I’m concerned, if things aren’t looking different on the Picard show they made a mistake. Things SHOULD.

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August 16, 2019 2:16 pm

Tiger2

Well we’ve only seen some glimpses of Picard and we have seen some advancements like more hologram uses. Of course Discovery has that now lol. But it actually FITS for Picard. ;)

But we still haven’t really seen much of anything, like any starships, which is really going to show us just how much things have changed since Voyager/Nemesis. And we know this group is going to go ALL out lol. And they had only been shooting the show for 3 months, its crazy how much we were able to see now. They are probably just saving the bigger stuff for the next big trailer or PR event. But I love how great it all ties into TNG but still a bit different like the uniforms for example.

As far as Discovery, I know Kurtzman gets a lot of slack here, but my guess is if he was the one to develop the show and not Fuller, we probably would’ve either got a post-Nemesis show from the outset (which he clearly seems to be more interested in doing, especially since he was a TNG fan first) OR would’ve made Discovery originally fit the Pike era as he tried to do in season 2.

And I said here months before the show aired it was going to get three seasons NO MATTER WHAT due to the nature of the show and propping up a new streaming site. Its no way they were going to hype this show for so long and tying it so closely to AA just to see it fail so quickly. And since every Trek show from TOS to Enterprise have ALL been given constant chances to improve and thrive my guess is they will keep throwing money at it for awhile or at least until the day come AA can sustain itself or some of the other Trek shows prove to be a bigger hit.

But its probably staying at least through fourth season now. After that, I guess we’ll see.

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August 16, 2019 3:17 pm

alphantrion

I heard the bad reviews about the new Twilight Zone and its a shame really. Is the show cancelled or is it coming back for another year?

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August 16, 2019 9:01 pm

Tiger2

Its been renewed. Come to think of it, I think practically every show on that site has been renewed lol. Could be wrong, but that is one of the advantages of a new site, most shows can hang on for awhile simply due to the lack of content. Once it ever hits Netflix level of programming, shows will start to go much faster.

As for TZ, it is disappointing. Kind of like Discovery for me, a lot of hype but not much substance in its first season. Hopefully TZ will improve in season 2.

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August 17, 2019 2:04 am

Methuselah

Here are two OBJECTIVE facts:

1. It’s been renewed twice already.

2. They have announced a spin-off series already.

All you are offering here are subjective opinions that are getting at why YOU PERSONALLY don’t BELIEVE the show is that successful. No offense, but that’s doesn’t even come close to being a compelling argument.

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August 17, 2019 5:29 pm

Tiger2

Go away troll.

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August 15, 2019 3:31 pm

FrostUK

Forgot about mission impossible also being split like that. I wonder they will develop an MI streaming series.

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August 14, 2019 9:40 am

Thorny

M:I hasn’t been successful on TV since the original. Star Trek has a much more successful TV history. I’m not sure an M:I TV series would work these days.

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August 14, 2019 10:20 am

tony

hunt turns up in the pilot to send a new team on its way on tv missions.
could work.

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August 15, 2019 1:49 am

TG47

MI sounds like it would be a successful show to produce in around Vancouver. There’s lots of extreme scenery in the region.

CBS doesn’t have a studio there, but there are many and more under construction.

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August 15, 2019 2:13 pm

Marja

If it were serialized to some extent, it might. Problem with the ’60s show was, they all became the same after a while because of the limited amount of time to tell a story of infiltrating/overturning a dictator’s government. That seemed to be the usual plot anyway ….

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August 16, 2019 12:56 am

alphantrion

It would be kind of fun and ironic if they cast Ethan Peck or Zach Quinto for the role of Paris, taking on another Leonard Nimoy role.

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August 15, 2019 11:39 pm

ML31

Stunt casting at its finest!

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August 16, 2019 9:15 am

FASAfan

Now offer Anston Mount and company 1.5 BILLION dollars apiece to make 7+ seasons of Pike and the Enterprise!

If you want to get technical… The Voyage Home was the first time Trek dipped into the shite category. Couldn’t wipe it all off until TUC. So just because the franchise hits a lull doesn’t mean it can’t get back out of it. Which is why I still hold out a little hope after seeing Discovery.

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August 15, 2019 9:01 am

TG47

We know you really loathe TVH ML31, but it was just fine in the opinion of many others here.

I loved it when it was released.

It’s weak points are more obvious to me now, but it was the first Trek cinematic feature that we shared with our kids. I’d still rate it as the most family-friendly Trek movie.

I do hope that as new cinematic features are being considered, ViacomCBS finds a way to produce some family-friendly Trek movies.

There is almost nothing in the other franchises that we’ve felt comfortable taking kids to. What’s the point of all the tie-in toys if the movie is determinedly age-appropriate?

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August 15, 2019 9:50 am

ML31

Good for you. My memory of going to that movie was I was excited as hell. I knew it was time travel and I was still a sucker for time travel stories then. I recall them shooing near me in San Francisco and at the Monteray Bay Aquarium. I also knew it was going to be a lighter tone. All these things felt right and it looked like it was going to be one heck of a movie experience. Then that malevolent probe showed up…. That kooky lsd inspired time travel sequence… Jokes that fell flat and didn’t work… Nothing about that movie worked. It was a tremendous disappointment for me. I don’t care how “family friendly” you felt it was. There are a lot of “family friendly” features out there that are terrible. I guess it’s fine for families as the jokes seemed aimed for the mentality of grade schoolers. I wouldn’t even consider it Star Trek as not one Star Trek character really appeared in it. They may have been the same actors and called themselves Kirk and Spock but it really wasn’t them. It was imposters.

Sorry. I can go on and on with how mind-bogglingly horrid that entire feature was. It’s too easy to go off on that tangent. The point is there have been terrible versions of Trek before. Voyage Home… Final Frontier… Insurrection… Discovery… Eventually Trek has always bounced back.

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August 15, 2019 11:40 am

Methuselah

LOL/WTF???

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August 17, 2019 6:56 pm

tony

not if they make them as good as ‘civil war’, ‘infinity/endgame’ or ‘winter soldier’.

No one is going to argue that the Marvel movies aren’t well crafted, but as far as story goes, Marvel has one script. Change of scenery and costume, ta da, a new movie that’ll make a billion dollars. The last one I saw in theaters was Ultron, and I still remember walking out of the theater thinking I’d seen this before. So I catch them on Netflix now. The last one I saw was Ant Man and Wasp Woman, or whatever it was called. Lots of FX. The Mexican guy got his rapid fire monologue. Good guys beat the bad guys. The end. Yes, make them good – Intersteller was good, Gravity was good. Make them like that.

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August 15, 2019 8:41 am

Thorny

“Gravity” was a fun movie but it really, really didn’t withstand close scrutiny. It was just one explosion after another for 90 minutes. How one can complain about Marvel movies and then give “Gravity” acclaim, I don’t understand.

Even “Interstellar” had that completely ludicrous fight scene (with Matt Damon) tacked on to give a very dull movie a little action.

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August 17, 2019 9:14 am

ML31

Civil war, while still containing simplistic character traits, was easily the last truly good Marvel film. Nothing has approached it yet. And it feels like that film will be the franchises high water mark.

Civil War. Lots of FX. Snappy dialogue from Iron Man. Good guys beat the bad guys. The end. Marvel movies are good looking books, with blank pages. Everything you need to know is on the cover notes.

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August 15, 2019 3:42 pm

tony

‘civil war’ ends with the avengers and steve/tony torn usunder just as thanos comes knocking……

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August 16, 2019 4:11 am

ML31

Snappy dialog from RDJ was pretty much 90% of why Iron Man worked way back in 2008.

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August 16, 2019 9:19 am

Methuselah

You are correct for that movie.

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August 17, 2019 5:21 pm

Methuselah

Nah, Avengers Infinity War was by far the best Marvel movie to date. Civil War has the nonsensical ending and the unnecessary and silly force-fit of Spiderman — it should have been a great movie, but those issues relegated it just being a good movie that is out-shadowed significantly by Winter Solider, Assemble, GOTG, Iron Man and Infinity War. Civil War is in the third tier along with Endgame, Thor, GOTG2 and Black Panther. 2nd tier is GOTG, Winter Solider, Iron Man and Assemble. Infinity War stands alone in Tier 1 as the only truly great Marvel movie.

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August 17, 2019 5:19 pm

ML31

Infinity War broke a lengthy slump from Marvel. It was better. Not great. Civil War still had more heart. Or as much as these movies are going to have. Again, Civil War wasn’t perfect. My main beef was as smart as Tony Stark is supposed to be he sure did act like a blithering idiot throughout most of that flick. But this speaks to how well done the rest of the film was considering that glitch. Infinity War I would put on the 2nd tier of Marvel films. OK but nothing special. Which is disappointing as that kind of film should have been spectacular. I will say that I’m thinking part of the reason the films are getting tiresome to me is that the formula is really wearing thin by now. For me at least. Seems not to with general movie goers judging by the box office. But I am also wondering how long that is going to last.

Sorry, but Infinity (and presumably Endgame) was just an infinitely longer version of Ultron, which was a clone of The Avengers. Again, well crafted movies, but no one is going to remember any of them thirty years from now.

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August 21, 2019 9:23 am

Marja

Or Ragnarok, which was a hoot!

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August 16, 2019 1:13 pm

Denny C

I love Star Trek but Star Trek is not the MCU. Super hero movies have proven to have universal appeal while Star Trek remains popular but appeals to a very specific audience which occasionally piques the interest of a broader audience (Star Trek 2009). With that in mind, Tarrantino’s movie now seems like an inevitability.

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August 14, 2019 10:48 am

Garth Lorca

Trek09 was incredibly successful compared to most older Trek movies. It was almost on par with your average summer blockbuster. They didn’t elaborate on that success in time so the numbers declined again. Trek09 and the entire KT trilogy was basically Trek being treated like a superhero movie with TOS being regarded as the comic book source material and it worked for a time…

But that Tarantino movie would evolve that concept into a direction that feels awfully wrong. I know, R-Rated comic romps like Deadpool, Logan, Joker or those infamous TV shows (The Boys, Titans etc) are quite fashionable in the CBM world. That puts a certain pressure on CBS to follow that very same path. And I fear that this “experiment” is indeed “inevitable”.

But it shouldn’t be. On the long run, I think those “adult” takes on the CBM genre will eventually lead into a dead end. There is only so much blood and guts general audiences will tolerate.

When westerns started to decline in popularity back in the late 60s, they also tried to refuel interest in the genre by adding buckets of blood. There are some legit masterpieces of that late era of western movies, but the genre has never regained its original innocent fascination it used to have in the 50s or early 60s.

CBMs will eventually come to that point and will probably be far worse off as those afore mentioned movies and TV shows will have damaged the genre beyond repair, not just morally but because of the entire cynical deconstruction of what had once made the genre great.

That’s why I don’t want Star Trek to go down that rabbit hole as long as they can avoid it. Where would you go from there? How can you ever reclaim that sort of moral highground our franchise still encompasses after a Tarantino movie and a few follow-ups in that same vein?

Bringing in kids with that Nick show only to lead them to that slaughterhouse established by Tarantino feels wrong. I know, it works the same way for Batman, but that also doesn’t really feel okay…

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August 14, 2019 11:14 am

Denny C

I think they’re looking for a spark to reignite Star Trek movies and Tarrantino will be difficult for them to resist. At this point they seem more than willing to roll the dice.

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August 14, 2019 2:57 pm

TG47

Studio executives are not known for ‘rolling the dice’ with largish vfx budgets with art directors with no track record of bringing in large global revenues.

Tarantino is not the kind of director who would accept a line producer challenging him on whether sfx or vfx are needed scene by scene – but that is exactly what would need to be done to keep a Trek cinematic feature within the $150 million range for production cost.

He’s also not likely to be open to input about what’s needed to make his film successful outside the United States. His films do not have a track record of bringing in significant international revenue – but this is essential for a successful Trek film – both in theaters and later streaming revenue.

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August 15, 2019 4:24 am

Denny C

They aren’t known for rolling the dice but their enthusiasm for a Tarantino Star Trek is well established and it’s been generating buzz for months. Curiosity will pull some people into theaters, a good movie will bring even more people in. Paramount has been stagnant as a studio for a number of years so the time has come to refocus and take some risks.

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August 15, 2019 12:20 pm

TG47

I think that < US$ 10 million in international revenue after 4 weeks would give the studios a lot of pause.

It sounds like curiosity about Tarantino is limited to the domestic U.S. market.

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August 15, 2019 12:58 pm

Garth Lorca

Nope. The movie is just opening in most places this weekend. It’ll make A LOT more. Tarantino is very popular in other countries, normally doubling the domestic numbers internationally.

But there is the China issue. Trek depends on China to thrieve and an R-Rated Trek flick won’t make it there…

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August 15, 2019 2:10 pm

Marja

Some movies have R-rated bits that can be edited out, you know.

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August 16, 2019 1:00 am

Methuselah

Taika Waititi and Patty Jenkins have been trying to call you — please turn your ringer back on.

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August 16, 2019 11:46 pm

Garth Lorca

“I think they’re looking for a spark to reignite Star Trek movies and Tarrantino will be difficult for them to resist.”

But that’s a gross mistake, especially given the international picture. As mentioned above, Trek is very popular in the HUGE Chinese market but Chinese authorities do normally not condone R-Rated flicks. Losing the second-most important market as well as some older idealists who reject Tarantino’s take on the human condition as well as most families with kids isn’t a clever business call at all… Also, don’t forget, in most other places, parents can’t even decide to take their kids along if they want to. Business-wise, a Tarantino Trek is a dead end and not worth the risk…

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August 15, 2019 2:02 pm

tony

westerns went bloody in the 60s/70s because of a revisionist tone about tell us how the old west really was in peckinpah films like ‘the wild bunch’ or with the ‘spaghetti, westerns from europe.

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August 15, 2019 1:45 am

Garth Lorca

True. But that very same thing happens with CBMs momentarily… The deconstruction of the moral integrity of superhero characters is also a “revisionist” take. Instead of striving to be the good guys, they are now twisted, cold-blooded maniacs and audiences seem to like that take a lot.
But deconstructing those characters will eventually lead to the loss of the iconic innocence. Supes, Spidey and even Batman need to be heroes, not super-complex antiheroes. It’s the same with Spock or Kirk. They can’t be portrayed as cold-blooded merciless killers. And that’s what I’m afraid of with QT at the helm…

It’s not a bit of blood and guts I’m afraid of… transporter accident, vaccuum of space, Mugato fight sequence, gritty Borg assimilation…
But Tarantino will have bar brawls with dozens of super-gory deaths, peace negotiations ending in mass murder etc… And there may be naked Orion dancers sliced open like those Mexican vampires… Because that’s what he does.
And yeah, he’ll justify it, saying people have always died on Trek, Starfleet is a bloody military service and it’s always been about western in space, a cold-blooded, revisionist western in space…

Trek has been revisioning itself since the lasers in The Cage, or the UESPA in Tomorrow is Yesterday. Trek is a living entity, not some kind of Bible people read from, as the Word of God.

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August 15, 2019 1:50 pm

A34

I’m surprised someone hasn’t started a Church of Star Trek yet. Maybe they have.

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August 15, 2019 10:04 pm

Lope de Aguirre

So now they shouldn’t be able to talk themselves out of releasing Star Trek I-X on UHD, remstering DS9 + VOY or greenlighting a new Trek film.

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August 14, 2019 11:24 am

Garth Lorca

No interest in UHD but HD for DS9 and VOY would be beyond awesome. Having all Trek shows in Blu-Ray quality would definitely be a treat.

As for the new movie… yes, they should greenlight Trek XIV ASAP, but please no Tarantino involvement or R-rating. It would damage the entire franchise as a whole and put that project into grave jeopardy.

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August 14, 2019 11:44 am

Denny C

The scenes they remastered for “What We left Behind” were stunning. Would love to see more.

No one, anywhere, has talked about gleefully shoveling money at Trek. All projects (proposed or otherwise) will be judged on merit and the ability to make money. That’s a no for UHD, remastered DS9 & Voy, and at least in the short term, no to movies as well. The last three movies generated plenty of revenue, but after expenses, were probably break even projects. Studios don’t survive as charities.

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August 14, 2019 11:58 am

Thorny

Movie is a very strong possibility. Star Trek is brand recognition that is sorely lacking at Paramount. Even if Trek is just a loss-leader, getting it out there to help promote other movies (such as the horrible GI Joe trailer that was stuck on Star Trek 2009 or the Anchorman 2 trailer stuck on Into Darkness.) is invaluable. Trek and M:I… Paramount doesn’t have much else. Use ’em or lose ’em.

Trek is a loss leader if they can make one for 40MM. MI is the studios only viable franchise at the moment. If Tom Cruise makes them some money as old Maverick in the age of fighter drones, I’d not expect to see Trek back on the big screen in a while.

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August 14, 2019 5:28 pm

A34

Get Tom to play Kirk.

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August 15, 2019 10:06 pm

Thorny

Why $40 million? Even “Beyond” which had atrocious promotion and a very bad release date (near the end of a summer of mediocre sequels) pulled in $160 million. The problem is that it cost too much to make, with lots of unnecessary CGI (Krall’s henchman, an over-the-top Starbase Yorktown) and a big name unrecognizable under 20 lbs. of latex. Some budget control and a Trek movie can easily turn a profit, or at the very least be sufficient to be an acceptable loss leader.

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August 17, 2019 9:27 am

Jonboc

Take heed, bean counters. Unless the final product is good, it’s all irrelevant.

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August 15, 2019 1:02 am

Danpaine

Very true. All this talk about quantity, but quality, is far more important.

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August 15, 2019 6:18 am

ML31

Yep. With all the streaming out there there is more new content being created out there than ever before. Yet the quality level has not improved one bit.

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August 15, 2019 9:07 am

TG47

It says a lot that Netflix almost always cancels shows before their 3rd season.

One wonders how they plan to survive once the content producers pull back their libraries to their own platforms.

But more generally, one wonders why other content producers aren’t focusing on creating durable offerings – the kind of offerings (like Trek) that had many seasons, episodes and longevity in syndication.

Global reach and re-watchability are what makes for long term profitability.

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August 15, 2019 9:43 am

ML31

The problem with season long story arcs… Even short season story arcs like all the streaming shows are… Is that they generally are not rewatchable. Stand alones have a better chance of being rewatchable because they only require 40-60 minutes of your time to revisit. But to get the full story you pretty much need to devote 11 hours or so to it. It’s asking a lot of viewers to rewatch that stuff. Even feature films have a better rewatch factor as they rarely are more than 2 1/2 hours long. It’s just not a big ask. I’ve enjoyed some of the stuff I’ve seen on streaming. And you know what was good enough to watch a 2nd time? Nothing. So if Netflix or others are relying on rewatches… They have made a huge mistake. The way they crank out new shows I think they are not relying on rewatching at all.

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August 15, 2019 11:47 am

TG47

Interesting points ML31.

I have actually rewatched Discovery and The Expanse in order to see them with a family member. Both held up pretty well.

I expect that rewatching serial TV is going to be more exceptional, and reserved for favourites. Certainly, I’ve found that DS9 is rewatched less here simply because one can’t just drop in and watch the odd episode in the later seasons.

I can see going back and rewatching serial TV a season at a time in a fashion analogous to rereading a long series of books. Yes, there are some great series that stand up to being reread every 5 years or so, but most will not be ‘keepers’.

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August 15, 2019 12:54 pm

Garth Lorca

Very good point. I feel the same about the lack of rewatchability with serialized shows, especially if the ending did not live up to your expectations. There have been many good serialized shows which were only good while still on air: NuBSG, Lost or more recently GoT. Those are probably my favourite serialized shows but none of their endings lived up to my expectations. So what’s the point in rewatching those 100+ hours ever again?

With traditional episodic shows, it doesn’t matter how satisfying the final episode was. TNG and DS9 ended on a high note, VOY was so-and-so and ENT had the worst final episode in TV history. But I can still rewatch my favourite episodes whenever I feel like it. You can’t do that with NuBSG, Lost or GoT let alone the floods of serialized superhero shows that are on today which are mediocre from day one but still interesting enough to be watched once.

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August 15, 2019 2:50 pm

alphantrion

Exactly, for example I can watch the Stargate SG-1 episode “Window of Opportunity” anytime I want. (its the groundhog day episode) and I never get bored by it. This was the good part of one-off storytelling. While there were dud episodes, there were also classic one-off stories that you could watch anytime you want.

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August 15, 2019 11:43 pm

A34

People binge watch now. It’s all good.

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August 15, 2019 10:08 pm

DIGINON

I read an article recently that explained why Netflix (and other streamers) usually don’t have long-running shows. One main reason given was that streamers rely on constantly getting new subscribers. It’s easier to get new subscribers by offering them something new than by season 12 of a show that’s been running for an eternity. Also, contracts are apparently set up in a way that make shows more expensive with every season. I guess that’s also true for traditional TV to some extent (e.g. actors’ salaries for shows like Big Bang Theory) but maybe it’s more extreme for streaming shows.

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August 16, 2019 12:52 pm

Trellium G

I was scrolling through Netflix the other day looking for something to watch and was amazed by the large number of uninteresting original content they now offer. I am seriously considering cancelling.

I hope CBS doesn’t use the name Star Trek in the same way. I rather have quality than quantity. The more abstract stuff like “Starfleet Corps of Janitors” needs to be extremely limited.

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August 15, 2019 12:56 pm

Garth Lorca

Yeah, there is far too much stuff out there, most of it being completely uninteresting, even for a genre die-hard like I am. Back in the 90s, I used to watch almost every genre show available, even those old 70s shows nobody seems to remember: Man from Atlantis, Space 1999, UFO… because the number of shows churned out each decade was limited.

Nowadays, I can’t even count the number of shows I’ve abandoned after half a season or less, especially that horror-fantasy road movie stuff like Supernatural, American Gods… those didn’t last long with me.

As for Trek: yeah, there is a certain danger of being given too much of a good thing. But I doubt they’ll ever churn out DC-ish numbers of TV shows. Remember when Lois & Clarke was the ONLY live-action TV show dealing with superhero stuff? Now there are dozens of them… nobody can keep up with that…

The day I give up on a Star Trek show has yet to come, but Section 31 is already on my blacklist :-)

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August 15, 2019 3:01 pm

A34

I can’t keep up with all the cool new shows Netflix has. I need a year off just to watch them all. But they did just cancel The OA 😞

You forget the more tries you get, the better the chance to strike gold. You shouldn’t dismiss quantity as irrelevant. On the contrary, it is what frees creators to push the envelope, leave their confort zone. More power to them!

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August 15, 2019 1:44 pm

tony

Barbara March aka lursa r i p

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August 15, 2019 5:38 am

ML31

As a consumer, my fear is that I may very well be spending more for my TV entertainment than ever before given all the streaming services that are planned. Obviously none will be wanting their content on any other. Eventually something will have to give. Difficult to see every single streaming service surviving 100% on their own. I’m sure there will be future mergers out there or even many buy into bundling packages with providers.

Yep. So are sporting events, concerts, a night at the local watering hole, the art museum, parades, Vegas, the gym, etc. If something has to give, maybe it should be four hours a night in front of the flat screen.

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August 15, 2019 3:36 pm

A34

No thanks. I hate going outside.

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August 15, 2019 10:12 pm

ML31

Here’s a bit of irony. I now have access to more new content than ever before. And I find myself watching less TV than ever before. Either I’m just getting tired of TV or the overall quality of the content has gone down. I think the later.

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August 16, 2019 9:28 am

Methuselah

That would be hilarious if in 10 years ATT and Comcast were the two companies who all the streaming services merged into.

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August 16, 2019 11:38 pm

ML31

They wouldn’t “merge” into them any more than Nickelodian and HBO have “merged” with them already. It would merely be a deal the streamers take part in. Like they already have with cable only it would be on the internet side.

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August 19, 2019 8:22 am

Chuck Abernathy

I hope this will finally put a bullet through the head of all the “25% different” rule, and all the merch/licensing jackassery.

Still and all, it did open him up to do what he really wanted to take a stab at: the Star Wars franchise.

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August 15, 2019 11:16 am

ML31

I’ve often wondered where that bogus 25% thing came from and why have so many bought into what was so obviously false?

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August 15, 2019 11:49 am

alphantrion

I think everyone jumped on it after John Eaves mentioned it one time and apparently he was mistaken.

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August 15, 2019 1:05 pm

albatrosity

It’s an opportunity for sure, let’s just hope they leverage it well. Disney did no good things to Star Wars, and the opportunity to bungle this for Trek is high, given how fans feel TPTB have performed for the past decade. But I’d like to point out that the New York Times article announcing the merger specifically mentioned Star Trek: Picard when referencing the libraries of the two corporate giants, the only show to be so named in the whole story. So it really does highlight the importance of Trek in all of this, and it’s a good sign for Trekkies like us. Now, if they want to, they can bankroll a cheap animated movie to draw in the kids based on the Nick series. They can make KT/Prime movies. They can do whatever they want, really. Also, Nick content going on CBSAA would finally fulfill my dream of having all those 90s cartoons I grew up with on one platform. Between that and Trek new and old, it may even become my primary streaming service!

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August 16, 2019 8:48 am

Methuselah

“ViacomCBS” has to the be one of the worst names ever. They need to rebrand this. And seriously, nobody cares about the “Viacom” name in terms of consumer product ID, so just call it all CBS, and Paramount can have “a CBS company” in small print under it’s name. No need for “Viacom”, which sounds like an 80’s X-rated video company based in Van Nuys.